Two Web Apps for Content Collection and Sharing

The Web is not just for consuming content. Thanks to an abundance of web apps for content curation, anyone can collect their favorite articles and photos to share with friends or use as inspiration. Apps like Pinterest and Pocket let you organize your content collection into categories and save articles for later reading. Collex.io and LinkWok are two new apps for a similar purpose, but with a slightly different, simpler approach.

Collex.io

You can think of Collex.io as Pinterest’s younger, lighter sibling. It doesn’t offer many features (yet), and the interface is decidedly minimalistic. This is why Collex.io is perfect for users who don’t like complicated web apps and prefer to keep things simple. To use Collex.io, a Twitter account is required – without it, you can only browse and share other people’s collections.

If you connect your Twitter account to Collex.io, you’ll be able to edit your profile settings (picture, bio, email address) and create collections. Every collection can have a big header image, and you’re free to add tags and a description. You can also choose a style and order in which items in the collection will be displayed.

Items are added by clicking the designated button and pasting the link to desired content. Here you can modify the item’s title and description. Items can be links to articles or images, and you can share other users’ collections or individual items. It’s also possible to follow other users.

Collex.io is a practical solution when you want to keep your favorite articles in one place and make them accessible from any device with Internet access. You can also use it as a portfolio of your own work if you’re a writer. The only downside is the fact that only Twitter users can create an account, but this might change as the app continues to develop.

LinkWok

LinkWok is a much more ambitious app – you can use it to create mind maps, save search results, organize research materials and plan projects. It supports links, images and videos, and you can even record your browsing session or cut and paste parts of a website. To save your work, you’ll need to create an account, but you can use LinkWok as a guest just to try it out. There is also a Chrome add-on for faster and easier content sharing.

The main area in LinkWok is called a searchmap, and this is where you’ll be editing your collection. The toolbar at the top lets you edit the name and details of your searchmap, as well as access help and your profile settings.

The sidebar on the left is where you’ll perform searches, manage collections and modify items before adding them to your searchmap. In the bottom right corner you’ll find a small navigation box that lets you zoom and move around the searchmap. You can also zoom in or out by using the mouse wheel. The small social menu lets you share the searchmap directly from LinkWok to social networks and email.

To collect content, first you’ll need to search for something – LinkWok lets you use Bing, Google, YouTube, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia – or drag and drop items into the searchmap.

Click the icons in the sidebar to insert tables, charts and sticky notes.

Once the items are added to the searchmap, they become Widgets and can be edited, repositioned, connected and combined into groups.

You can adjust their size, add descriptions and use arrows to create a flowchart or to denote a relationship between items. It’s also possible to preview each item separately, and change the searchmap background.

If you’re working on a project that requires detailed research and creative presentation, LinkWok can really help you, especially if you prefer visual information. The ability to drag and drop items to quickly arrange them into meaningful content is LinkWok’s most practical feature. When it comes to collecting and organizing content by theme without too much hassle, Collex.io is a good choice. Both tools can be used for personal as well as business-related purposes, and since they’re relatively fresh apps, we can expect improvements and new features in the future.

Can you recommend some other content curation apps? Share your tips in the comments.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Ivan! I’m really glad that you like this app.

I know many people tend to criticise new apps for “reinventing the wheel”, but I don’t see it that way – quite the contrary, I enjoy discovering and trying out new software and services. It’s really refreshing to look at different approaches and innovation they offer. And it’s (almost) always better to have many options to choose from instead of being limited to just one type of software. That’s why I love presenting these small but interesting apps to our readers – I’m always hoping someone will at least try them – just like you did! :)